1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a process for reading the barcodes on cylindrical elements and particularly to a process for reading the barcodes of self-rotating cylindrical elements, and more particularly to a process for reading the barcodes of elements after cylindrical elements are captured to a certain height and self-rotated, which also involves a process to read the carrying-tray barcode of a carrying tray. The present invention also relates to an apparatus for reading the barcodes. The cylindrical elements include batteries.
2. Related Art
Currently, during manufacturing the assembly parts of the electronic, optical-electrical and mechanic products, it is commonly to adhere a barcode on the surfaces of the part for identification. The barcodes are read by manually using barcode readers for recording information of the elements. The part which is adhered with barcode is commonly in a form of block or cylindrical shape, such as a battery. Taiwan Patent Application Publication Nos. 201010160 and 201010161 describe a plurality of block batteries disposed on a transfer apparatus (a carrier jig or named as carrying tray), barcodes are adhered to the batteries and the information thereon are read and recorded by a reader. The details of the technology for reading the barcodes are not disclosed. China Patent Application Publication No. 200620063148 discloses a test process by reading barcodes to record the information of a plurality of cylindrical batteries and the position thereof. However, the process describes in this CN patent application relies on manually operating the reader to scan and record the barcode information of the cylindrical batteries one by one. When operating the process describes in the CN patent application, it is inconvenient to scan the barcodes and easy to result in reading error on the barcode information. Moreover, China Patent Application Publication No. 20062006634 describes a process improving the manually operation of the reader to scan the barcodes one by one. This CN patent application teaches an improvement on the manually operation of the readers to scan the barcodes. It is taught that a reader is disposed on a rail by manually moving or electro-mechanic driving the reader both in perpendicular and horizontal directions to scan the barcodes on the plurality of cylindrical batteries arranged on a rack. However, because the barcode is adhered on the arc or cylindrical surface of the cylindrical element, the length of barcode is in a certain range of the cylindrical surface thereof. Thus, merely by moving the readers without manually or other manner to rotate the cylindrical battery, the reader is unable to correctly scan the barcodes on the arc or cylindrical surfaces. It is apparent to result in incomplete scanning or reading errors. Furthermore, the barcodes which are not adhered on the same position of the arc or cylindrical surfaces will result in an ineffective reading by the reader.